Sectarianism

It's an obvious analogy: There is a minority (mostly Sunni) elite ruling over a (mostly Shia) majority. The last few years have seen systematic discrimination, a repression of fundamental rights, and torture and deaths in custody. People aren't divided by race but by sect, which typically dictates where they live, what jobs they do, and whether they can achieve political power.

Neither public servants nor clergy nor holy books nor heroes are infallible. Battling obscurantism does not mean we are saints of any kind. It means we will not accept a tyrant's bogus paradise, and are free to form our own words and images and make up our own minds.

Does the situation of present-day Muslim society, marked by crisis, tensions, foreign interventions and political despotism, foster the reformist democratic Islam, or does it promote its violent and theocratic rivals?

As soon as the Tunisian elections results were announced with Nidaa Tounes overtaking Ennahdha party, celebrations of the "Islamists'" defeat at the hands of the "secularists" got underway across the media in France and many other western capitals.

Numerous observers and actors alike in the conflict blame al-Maliki's refusal to form a coalition government, composed of multiple sectors and factions within the country, for the ongoing existential crisis.

The phenomenon of intra-religious strife highlights the key problem with using religious texts and doctrines to address ethical issues in general, and in particular, how we treat other human beings. All holy texts, and the doctrines derived from such texts, are infinitely malleable.

A virtual reality does not necessarily even exist in the mind, for individuals can be deeply influenced by a virtual reality that they don't even believe in or know exists. The demonic, as an oppressive force upon our lives, captures this virtual dimension.

Although all of Syria's neighbors have been negatively impacted by the country's crisis, Iraq's sectarian tensions and the religious, historical and cultural bonds between Syrians and Iraqis connect the two states' political fates.

How can each of Protestantism's 33,000 denominations expect people to take them seriously when the two that have been chosen to maintain the most important spot in all of Christendom fight each year over who gets to clean what part of the church?

The so-called sectarian divide of Bahrain is a manipulative simplification of a far greater divide: that of the colonially-installed government that has no connection with or compassion for the people of Bahrain.